AIMIA Award joins Webby Award in the Trophy Room at Surry Hills

It’s not often you can walk into the offices of a 3 year old agency and be confronted by a wall of major industry awards. The blossoming Sydney based digital agency Circul8 is the exception to this rule. Co-founders Alana Stocks and Creative Director Jamie Madden have wasted no time putting Circul8 on the map with Australia’s only win at the International Webby Awards in New York. Proving it was no fluke, the award was followed up with a win at the 16th annual AIMIA’s earlier this month in Melbourne.

The AIMIA-winning campaign for Greenpeace International, Action-Pact, saw over 20,000 people send a climate change messages to delegates at the December 09 summit in Copenhagen.
The campaign was a hit with public voters as well as the panel of judges at the AIMIA awards, with one judge quoted as saying “It’s a brilliant site, this was the only site I actually participated in, created my own entry and networked it via email, Facebook, and Twitter”

In 2009, Circul8 was the only Australian digital agency to win at the International Webby Awards in New York for the Send-a-Whale advocacy campaign for Greenpeace International, which saw 170,000 people create and send an origami whale to the Prime Minister of Japan, demanding an end to whaling.

Circul8 co-founders Alana stocks and Jamie Madden are excited about the recent wins.

“The social media scene has helped us grow by focusing on creative ideas that go that extra step to get noticed. People are spending hours posting status updates and engaging, telling everyone what you’re having for dinner or about your cat’s affair with the neighbors’ cactus ten times can get pretty dull. Our mandate is simple, we create brilliant content that people want to talk about and share” Jamie says

Alana is adamant that all great ideas are supported by great strategy and the changes in the online advertising landscape is seeing all sorts of industries scrambling to get on-board with new wave of media, including Twitter, Facebook and word-of-mouth campaigns.

“Advertising is now a two-way communication between a brand and its audience, it’s the most fundamental change since the advent of the moving picture, its impossible to ignore, if you do you might just wind up in some dark corner, talking to yourself.”

Circul8 are keen to build off the back of this momentum in 2010 and are currently working on a number of potential award winning projects.

 AIMIA – Award Winners 2010

Click here to download the AIMIA Booklet

Circul8 team at the AIMIA Awards in Melbourne.

Photo Credit: "16th Annual AIMIA Awards - Red Carpet" by Amy Ward

I’ll tell you something interesting. The Webby’s have a tradition. It’s very dark and mysterious. Passed on to by generation. What is this brooding myth? It refers to acceptance speeches. They are limited in length. But are infinite in creativity. Speeches must be five words. Or less, if you wish. Here are Jamie and Alana. With impeccable delivery of acceptance. 

You may also want to check out the dedicated YouTube Webby Channel. It’s a new way of viewing events on YouTube

Help write the best story in the galaxy!

Circul8 have created The Five Word Whale Tale to celebrate their Webby win. "The Five Word Whale Tale" will support Jamie and Alana on their bravery quest to New York. So we made an online interactive story. You can add your five words to the story, to make it the best story ever in history!

We want everyone to be involved, so the story stretches from Sydney to New York. For that we’ll need thousands of authors - and you’re one of them. Here’s the coolest part - the  best five words in the story will be used as their acceptance speech!

So add your five words now to the Whale Tale!

Pime Minsiter Kevin Rudd taking hold of a chunk of Circul8 handywork produced for online activist group GetUp.
The petition for "action on climate change" is currently the largest of it’s type in australian with over 95,000 signatures.

http://beta.getup.org.au/campaigns/campaign.php?alias=ClimateActionNow&id=8

That’s right, Circul8 are nominees for the leading international awards. The Webby’s honour excellence on the Internet including Websites, interactive advertising and online film and video.

Circul8 are nominated for their work on the Levis AU & NZ site.

Founded in 1992, AIMIA is the peak industry body for interactive content and digital media in Australia.

The AIMIA Awards are the peak Awards for the Interactive Media and Digital Content sectors in Australia, and year after year continue to deliver a strong, innovative showcase of award winning Australian Digital Content creations. Over 700 industry leaders, international and national Interactive Media celebrities, as well as Federal and State Ministers will attend the ceremony.

Circul8 has been nominated as a finalist in the Entertainment Catergory for their work on the Prodigy Films website.

Click here to see the other finalists…